[Matt Henderson]

Now don't get me wrong there is nothing quite like an evevning spent chilling my man vegetables whilst being shouted at by Ben ( ), however there's only so often I can go back without doing any practise in between visits. 

I got some drills from Ben for practising double hauling but I wondered if anybody else has any favourite drills for practising casting, single or double handed I'm not fussy.

Cheers

Matt

[Marc Fauvet]

hi Matt,

take your pick, they're all excellent  

http://www.sexyloops.com/carlos/index.shtml

have fun !
marc

[Rob Brownfield]

Thanks for that link Marc. I "discovered" the foam ball in the crook of your arm by mistake the other night when deep wading for Pike.

I nornally cast the Pike flies with an open stance and a big reach, but the wind was playing silly buggers and being up to ones waist in water ment that the casting was getting tiring to say the least.

So, I started to fish a shorter line and hold my elbow close to my side, only really using my body and forearm, much like the foam ball and the "push pull" exercise.

What I found was the loops tightened up and the line was tugging on the shoot..so I pulled more line off, and sure enough, the casting was easier and smoother.

I think the fact I was using Pike gear (Helios 9 weight, Cortland Pike Rocket Taper 9 weight, 6 inch flies, Mach IV reel) really compounded my errors, but once I corrected them, the outfit suddenly became a lot easier to use.

[Ben Dixon]

I wondered if anybody else has any favourite drills for practising casting, single or double handed I'm not fussy.

Cheers

Matt

Hi Matt,

With the single hander play about with loop size, start with about 20' of line outside of the rod (a heavier line like the SLX or i line is good for this) and start casting your normal fishing loops with line trapped against rod and left hand doping nothing.  Do this with your normal fishing trajectory.  Open up the loops then go back to "normal" then try to tighten them whilst keeping the same trajectory front & back then do the same with a longer and shorter length of line.  Once you are happy with this, do the same but play about with the casting plane and trajectory.
If you can control size of loop and trajectory with varying lengths of line you will be able to do an awful lot more at will when fishing.  The other good exercise is to play about with reducing the power you put in, false cast a fixed length of line with your normal stroke and then try to take power out until the cast is almost collapsing, aim to maintain same loop size.

Cheers

Ben

[Matt Henderson]

Thanks Marc and Ben. Given me quite a few things to think about.

[Marc Fauvet]

and another i forgot to put up last night. it's sort of the holy grail of fly casting drills-

Making adjustments on the fly
by Bill Gammel
http://www.sexyloops.com/articles/adjustmentsonthefly.shtml

cheers,
marc